


Shared Differences

by Silex



Category: Original Work
Genre: Bigfoot - Freeform, Cryptids, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-26 15:12:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17748257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silex/pseuds/Silex
Summary: Mary and her friends had been searching for evidence of Bigfoot for years, more for the adventure of it than actually expecting to find anything. Little did she know that it was just a matter of getting herself lost and then ending up being found.





	Shared Differences

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sweetcarolanne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetcarolanne/gifts).



“I’ll go this way to see if I can find a stream,” Mary said, hurrying down the gentle incline, deeper into the woods. As soon as she was out of sight of the others she broke into a run.

While the others were walking transect lines, scouring the woods, searching for the vaguest evidence she was looking for something more, or more accurately, she was waiting to be found.

Something large roamed the forest, an unknown great ape and the others all thought that they were going to be the first ones to find it and bring back proof. This time they were bound to get lucky and all their effort would pay off.

Except there was no need for it, something Mary knew just as surely as she knew that she didn’t need to pay attention to where she was going, didn’t need to look, because she knew that she would be found.

Just like she had been last winter, when the snow was fresh.

The better for finding tracks, they’d all agreed, but the wind had come in, along with a fresh dusting of snow, erasing their own tracks and leaving the woods pristine and still.

She had been separated from the others, convinced that she heard the sound of cars on the road and instead finding a fast flowing river, water crashing over fallen trees in the otherwise silent forest.

That was where she first encountered Urra, the sounds of the cryptid’s approach masked by the sound of the water.

Someone cleared their throat behind her and Mary had turned around, ready to scold Kelly or John for sneaking up on her. Instead she found herself face to face with a shaggy, gray and brown furred creature.

She’d been too shocked to be afraid and Urra’s eyes had been kind.

That was what she remembered best about their first encounter, that those dull, hazel eyes had worn the gentlest, most concerned expression she had ever seen.

Urra guided her from the river, deeper into the forest, to a dense grove of cedar trees, providing shelter from the wind and storm.

It was the exact sort of place that she and the others would have called ‘an ideal bedding site’, but clearly it wasn’t. There was no evidence that anyone had been there before the two of them arrived.

Mary quickly saw it for what it was, a neutral ground, where the two of them could safely meet.

Because as many questions as she had, Urra had them in equal number.

“Who are you?” had been the first.

Because the creature sitting across from her clearly wasn’t an animal, but a person.

So they sat and asked questions.

Urra wasn’t alone, there were many of her kind in the woods, though she was alone in her fascination with humans.

Mary tried to explain her similar fascination, how it was a similar kind of loneliness, to hope that there were still strange and wonderful things hidden out there, waiting to be found.

Urra agreed, laughing that someone as ordinary as her might be called strange and wonderful, then countered that often people overlooked the wonderful things once they found them.

They talked for hours, losing all track of time, questions giving way to conversation.

It grew dark as the sun set, lights visible in the distance, between the trees.

Urra stood up, lingering for a moment to watch the flashlights of Mary’s friends, out in the woods, looking for her.

Their meeting was over.

The wind picked up and Urra walked away.

Mary counted to thirty, hoping that it was enough time, and then called out, turning on her own flashlight.

There hadn’t been any cause for concern, even seeing each other, it still took several minutes for them to reunite, stumbling through dense brush and deep snow.

She told them about waiting in the cedar trees and that she saw something, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell them about Urra. It was too unbelievable.

A fleeting glimpse, a strand of hair caught on a branch, a single footprint in the snow, were all easier to accept.

If she told the truth they’d all think she was joking.

But she did take them to the cedar grove the next day, and they all agreed, as she’d suspected, that it would be an excellent bedding site and that in the future they should search there again.

Disappointed by the lack of evidence, but not disheartened, they left the woods, promising to return again.

They did, checking the cedar grove, setting up a trail camera and discussing other places to look.

Mary found an excuse to go off on her own, hoping, but not expecting to find anything.

One miracle in a lifetime was the most she could expect, thinking that the impossible would happen a second time was asking for too much.

Urra was there, walking out from a dense patch of brambles, holding a brace of rabbits.

She’d been hunting near where she expected humans to be, she explained, hoping to watch, but not expecting to see Mary again.

They talked and Mary noted that Urra carried a bow and a quiver of arrows.

Amusingly, they were an eclectic assortment of garishly colored fiberglass arrows. Urra explained, smiling shyly, that collecting them was a hobby of hers and if she did lose one there was no worry about humans finding it and wondering where it had come from.

Mary was slightly disappointed to learn that, though she couldn’t articulate why, she supposed that she’d expected more of Urra and her kind, that a race that hid from humans wouldn’t be influenced by humans.

Urra countered that if a human could be fascinated by her, then it was her right to be similarly interested in them and collecting arrows was no different than looking for footprints except that arrows were far more practical.

Then Urra suggested that next time they met she would have something with her more in tune with what Mary had been hoping to find.

She should have known by Urra’s smile to suspect something, but at that point she hadn’t realized the ape woman’s sense of humor.

The day before the next new moon, they agreed as the time to meet.

That time Mary went into the woods alone.

And when Urra found her she made good on her promise.

An exquisitely knapped arrowhead.

Made of glass from a broken beer bottle.

She looked at the brown glass arrowhead, Urra patiently waiting for her to say something.

Mary didn’t know enough about bow hunting to appreciate if it was well balanced or if the shape was perfect, though it looked it with its serrated edges and a painfully sharp looking tip, enough so that she was afraid to hold it despite her gloves.

“It’s pretty,” she said at last, wishing that she knew more so she could better compliment the work that had clearly been put into it.

“Very,” Urra agreed, “The brown ones are my favorite, the way the light shines through them, though the green ones are pretty too. They look so much like leaves that I admit, sometimes I focus more on the leaf shape than making a good arrow.”

Then she couldn’t hold back any longer and burst out laughing, letting on that she knew that Mary would have wanted something made from stone, but unable to resist making a joke.

Mary wasn’t upset, she just wished that she had a more fitting gift than the drawstring bag that she’d knitted. The colors were too bright in her opinion, but Urra had said that was what she found so fascinating about humans, that they were loud and colorful like birds.

Urra was delighted with the bag, marveling at the rather clumsy craftsmanship and asking how Mary had made it.

The next time she went into the woods Mary brought knitting needles with her, as well as plenty of yarn, carefully hidden from the others.

It took her most of the trip to get away from everyone and it took a while for Urra to find her, meaning that she didn’t have much time to teach her to knit, but Mary did the best she could and left the ape woman with a set of needles and plenty of yarn to practice.

In the spring Urra taught her about edible mushrooms and how to find where good berries grew. She also tried to teach Mary about hunting, but Mary was too squeamish to try herself and quickly changed the subject each time it was brought up.

Each time Mary went into the woods with her friends, looking for evidence that she knew they’d never find, she saw the woods in a different way, occasionally pointing out the plants and game trails to them. They agreed that there had to be something out there, Kelly had found a set of badly distorted tracks by the one stream, and they’d made a point of keeping an eye on the area.

Mary knew it was pointless, that the stream wasn’t anything special and whoever had left the tracks had just been passing through the area, but she didn’t say anything.

Urra had explained what to really look for, pointing out trails that Mary would have missed, subtle signs of passage that only someone who knew how to find them would see.

Urra wasn’t alone, far from it, though Mary never saw any others of her kind.

As the weather grew warmer and Urra started to shed her winter coat, silver and brown giving way to a brindled mixture of black and brown and gold, perfect for blending in with light and shadow of the sun filtering down through leaves, Mary offered Urra her hair brush.

She’d never seen such delight in the ape woman’s eyes as she had when she demonstrated how to use the brush.

That afternoon was spent brushing Urra, a remarkably relaxing and intimate activity.

When it was time to leave Urra insisted that they meet again as soon as possible, that she would feel guilty until she reciprocated such a gift.

It was just a cheap, supermarket hairbrush, not meant to last, and easily replaceable, but Urra would hear none of it.

Mary assumed it was a joke, after all the ape woman had quite the sense of humor. It often made Mary wonder if there were times she was reading too much into things, the way Urra would look at her, the way she would place a hand on Mary’s shoulder to steady her when they walked over difficult terrain and occasionally just because.

Then she saw Urra’s gift.

It was a comb, carved from a large, flat piece of bone. The teeth were tiny and sharp, made for raking out the undercoat, and the handle was intricate scrimshaw depicting two of Urra’s people, both women, running fingers through each other’s fur.

It was the kind of gift Mary had been hoping for the day of the arrowhead, some evidence of culture and tradition. Of course then she wouldn’t have understood it, seen it as nothing more than a pretty trinket and proof of something remarkable. There would have been no grasp of the meaning of it.

“I’ve been working on this for a long time,” Urra admitted with an embarrassed smile, “I would have liked to carve it different, but there’s much I don’t know. So I simply carved two women in love on the handle, not specific women, just women.”

“What don’t you know?” Mary wondered, turning the comb over in her hands. It was perfect, beautiful, even if the thought of it being bone was unnerving to her. She felt ashamed for the thought, but she and Urra had their differences and the gift was clearly sincere.

Urra looked away, “I don’t know what your people do when they’re in love.”

Mary tried to show her, resulting in the most wonderfully awkward kiss imaginable.

Afterwards Urra laughed, “That’s something we’ll need to practice more before I try making a carving. Maybe if you show me again, slower.”

They spent the rest of the day together practicing.


End file.
